


no such thing as a good decision

by frozennightmare



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s01e13 The Parting of the Ways, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 02:51:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozennightmare/pseuds/frozennightmare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the power of the Bad Wolf in her hands, Rose tries to choose a timeline for her and her Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	no such thing as a good decision

**Author's Note:**

> vaugely inspired by a tagfic i read once. enjoy.

She sees so much, and her head is burning up like a candle with a flame grown too big, screaming to be put out but afraid to do so herself. Time is spinning in every direction like a ball of red thread and as she stares at him,  _her Doctor_ ,  his face shifts and changes and muddies a thousand different ways, disappearing into a wide-eyed stranger with funny hair in a blinding burst of light, keeling over dead at her feet, staying the same but with power beyond her own. It is her choice, she realizes, which path they will take, like some twisted Choose-Your-Own-Adventure she used to play as a kid. She has control over everything, life and death in the Bad Wolf’s paws.

So Rose latches on to the stranger, and  _oh,_ her head hurts even more. Visions of the strange man, all funny words and clever speeches and some really great hair, staring at her like she’s the world and she likes it, _loves it,_ her heart pounding faster in her chest. Hospitals and werewolves and planets and promises they can’t hope to keep but make anyways, the feeling of someone beside her in the dark, the warm steady glow that beats  _lovelovelove_  in a rhythm of four by two on and on and on.

But then it stops, dead and cold and foreign, and Rose backpedals, looking for a way that doesn’t involve white-walls and resurrected fathers.

There isn’t one. With safety comes repercussions, ugly and deadly, timelines twisted and mothers dead and her Doctor going mad. Even with all of time and space in the palm of her hand, some things must happen.

She pushes on, exploring every avenue, watching her funny man lost and alone, his smile gone, and her hearthurts. She doesn’t even know him yet, not really, but she knows what he will become, and that’s enough. He’s still her Doctor, and she doesn’t want to watch him fall like that.

Somewhere in this struggle she spots a woman, a ginger girl who shouts at the sky because no one listens to her, and she bends the timelines a little so they meet. He needs a friend, someone to keep him afloat, if he’s going to wait for her.

Finally, the solution comes, a trap she can build herself, but it’s dark and horrible and her mind burns so much she can hardly think straight. She can bring herself back, but the world will end, there has to be a way, _there has to-_

_I could save the world but lose you._

The Doctor’s words from so long ago come rushing back to her, and she grits her teeth because not today, this is the day that everybody lives.

Or as many people as she can save.

For Donna she does the best she can, but once again she is met with a crossroads. Kill the friend she gave him and have her Doctor back, or kill Donna’s memories and take someone else, a man in a strange blue suit that looks like him and talks like him and makes a promise he can keep to stay with her forever. Her life is different there, strangely domestic, with families and houses but still wild and full of odd things and that man, always that man, staying with her until they wither away together. It’s not the path she wanted to craft, but it’s a good one, and she’ll take it.

Just out of curiosity she looks back, looks back at the first Doctor, the one she left behind, and her heart _snaps_. Rose watches him tumble downwards into darkness, unbound, terrifying and terrified at the same time. Watches as he sacrifices himself in one last desperate attempt to do good, as he says goodbye to her in the snow, as a madman with a bowtie shouts wildly at the sky and hides under his childish facade so he won’t let his friends see how insane he really is.

_No._

Rose reaches out, grabs the shoulder of a woman in Victorian London, a clever girl that she knows he’ll like, and asks for help. Asks, doesn’t command, because that’s what the Doctor would do.

Clara agrees. She won’t remember doing it, as Rose won’t remember any of this, but she agrees.

Still, he isn’t quite whole, so she places herself in his path one last time,as a chance to really say goodbye, to let go.

 _It’s not a bad story_ , she thinks.  _Not bad at all._

“Come here.” her Doctor says, the one she knows and loves already. “I think you need a doctor.”

If only he knew.


End file.
